Pepperfire Hot Chicken — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

DO NOT EAT HERE!! TELL YOUR FRIENDS!! DO NOT EAT HERE UNLESS YOU LIKE DINING AT PLACES WHERE THEY ARE HAPPY TO TAKE YOUR MONEY BUT DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU BEING A SATISFIED CUSTOMER. This place has the worst level of customer service in the state. I stopped by today, for the first time ever, to try the chicken wings. I very politely explained to the cashier that I had not visited before and did not like spicy food and thought I should order the mild. She shrugged her shoulders and rang in the mild. A few minutes later several young girls came in and after she gave them a proper greeting, she asked if they had ever been in before. They said "no" and she very politely and patiently explained the menu. It caused me to go back up to the cashier stand and tell her that I thought I should change my order b/c I do not like spicy food. Again, I received a shoulder shrug. At this point, I walked over to the section of the restaurant where they place to go orders on the counter and asked if my order was ready. At this point, I had been waiting about 15 minutes for a to go order. As I inquired about my order, I informed the other cashier how I did not appreciate being treated so differently from other customers while I tried to place an order. Unbeknownst the male standing next to the second cashier was the GM. He said nothing and walked to the back of the restaurant. At that point, I asked for the manager and that is when the second cashier told me that that the gentleman that had just walked off was the GM. When he returned, i gave him my complaint and he responded that he was "sorry if I perceived the cashier's actions as somehow being different towards me". I stated that it was not perception and I wanted a refund. He refused to give me a refund because my food was ready. BUT, there was no food on the counter. I then asked for the owner's contact information so that I could relay how poorly my visit had gone and the GM REFUSED TO GIVE ME THE OWNER'S NAME. At this point, I am livid. There is still no food on the counter. I asked where my order was so that I could leave and he told me that it was cooking!!!!! THE GM LOOKED ME IN THE EYES AND LIED ABOUT MY ORDER BEING READY. I asked for a refund or my food and at that point, probably 20 minutes after I placed a to go order, he refused to provide me with either. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE IN MY LIFE! I WILL NEVER STEP FOOT IN THIS RESTAURANT AND I ADVISE YOU TO DO THE SAME. I LEFT THE RESTAURANT WITHOUT A REFUND AND WITHOUT FOOD!! HORRIBLE PLACE. ALTHOUGH IT IS LOCATED IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTH, THERE IS NO SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY HERE!!! Shame on you...

The food itself is high-quality and very good fried chicken but I have to take 2 stars because:

the restaurant, which is small inside, is filled with a light smoke that actually makes breathing kind of a chore after the next point. The smoke I'm talking about is the same density of smoke you might fill your kitchen with searing a steak and having your oven set to 500° we ordered in 10 minutes and waited on food (5 pieces of chicken in total) for 50 minutes the above combo means that you leave smelling like you worked the fryer for a whole shift which means you either get to go home and find another outfit to wear out that night or go out smelling like chicken grease. I would not recommend this place at all if you wanna grab a bite before doing something social. this is more subjective but the hot spice level didn't come close to actually being hot. My fiancé, who is more sensitive to spice than myself but enjoys spicy food, was sad because there was 0 heat on her medium chicken and I was sad because after an hour I would say that neither of us actually ate hot chicken. If you like spicy, there are two levels above hot that may fit the bill.

The fried grilled cheese was amazing, the potato salad was my idea of a perfect potato salad, the beer selection is a good one for people new to the city wanting to drink local, and the chicken itself is great fried chicken.

Hopefully this place can address the above because, in all honesty, I ended up somewhat regretting going here as it started to turn into more of a chore than a fun dining experience. I had to explain to people behind us that their long wait is not unusual and they became slightly upset at the situation and were ready to just go to get fast food, my fiancé started getting hangry on me, an uber eats driver was pacing the place really stressed out about his wait time, and there was an out of order restroom causing a line by one of the 2 long tables.

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to really explain how much the actual experience brought down the overall quality of the place even with great...

Too bad the blonde was so horribly rude tonight not just to us but another customer while we were there that I have to rate 1 star. If I was rating the chicken though I would give 5 stars. I'm left perplexed tonight. We were not informed that they had run out of collard greens at the time we ordered. Instead they made the executive decision to replace it with beans. So we got our food not knowing they did this. Opened it all up and saw we had 2 sides of beans instead of 1 collard greens. So my SO went to the counter to let them know this is not whst we had ordered. Before he could even finish the sentence this blonde woman is yelling at him telling him she can't replace it if we've opened it . Extremely defensive and crazy. We didn't even complain as such we were politely pointing out that an error had been made. When she finally heard the full story that they gave us the wrong side she still didn't change her defensive behaviour. We ended up sticking with the beans as she was too much to deal with but if we were told at the time of ordering we would have chosen something else. To make the situation even worse is that another customer came in asking the same thing (received the order and was not informed they didn't have collard greens) she then accused the customer of yelling at her when he literally just asked a question. So if you like fried chicken and you like a crazed blonde woman yelling at you and other customers then this is the...